Even a small-scale, regional nuclear war could produce as many direct fatalities as all of World War II and disrupt the global climate for a decade or more, with environmental effects that could be devastating for everyone on Earth. A team of scientists at Rutgers University, the University of Colorado at Boulder and UCLA conducted rigorous scientific studies reported at an AGU press conference today.
Even a small-scale, regional nuclear war could produce as many direct fatalities as all of World War II and disrupt the global climate for a decade or more, with environmental effects that could be devastating for everyone on Earth. A team of scientists at Rutgers University, the University of Colorado at Boulder and UCLA conducted rigorous scientific studies reported at an AGU press conference today.
Research reported in the Plant Cell reveals important aspects of plant metabolism associated with grain filling and kernel yield in maize. The scientific breakthrough of this research is its indication that two closely related isoforms of the cytosolic enzyme glutamine synthetase determine two major and distinct yield components in maize, kernel size and kernel number. The results point to a dominant role of nitrogen retranslocation rather than carbon allocation during grain filling.
Geology topics of interest include: Two New Zealand supervolcanoes that erupted only days or weeks apart; remarkably detailed K-T boundary evidence from the tropical Atlantic’s Demerara Rise supporting a single impact event; and human impact on continental erosion and sedimentation.
Hydrogen-powered cars that do not pollute the environment are a step closer thanks to a new discovery which promises to solve the main problem holding back the technology.
Topics include: impact of melting glaciers on near-shore ecosystems; discovery of intact egg clusters from a Middle Cambrian oceanic invertebrate; biotic recovery from the End-Permian mass extinction; fossil evidence of unusual animal foraging behavior; dating the destruction of Herod the Great’s harbor at Caesarea; El Ni?o-related landslides along the Big Sur coastline, and evidence of flowing water at Mars’ Erebus crater. The GSA Today science article describes dynamics of ice sheet recession in East Antarctica.
New research shows the rate of increase in carbon dioxide emissions more than doubled since the 1990s.
Integrating new location-aware computer networks with old-fashioned human networks, researchers at the New Jersey Institute of Technology (NJIT) have developed an innovative solution to the problem of isolation that faces women in the academic science and engineering workforce.
In handling fraudulent stem-cell research articles, journal editors went above and beyond existing procedures to try and verify the findings, but in today’s competitive publishing environment, more stringent, less trusting safeguards are now essential, an independent committee has concluded.
Scientists from the ARC Center of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies have produced the world’s first engineering model to predict how much damage a reef is likely to suffer when confronted with an angry sea. In a paper in Nature, Dr. Joshua Madin and Dr. Sean Connolly use mathematical models to calculate the forces that coral is subjected to by waves or storm surge and the probability of the colonies being ripped from the seabed.